coastspinna

nice fish who cares about flathead anyway

"Personally I'm more worried about spiked by a flathead, got a bit of a shock when I caught my first one Its all about confidence alasdair" thats a brave call... flathead spikes just make you bleed... angry mud crabs steal fingers.LOL besides that you are right a smooth confident grab is much better than lunging at the tasty animal suffo i'm sure you could use the small electrical ties but i would think they would be slippery and hard to work with.... i know this vid isn' t the clearest but you can get the idea what to do ...go chick go....i need a missus like that .as the vid says... danger

roberta, don't tell me you are encouraging people to use those delicious morsels as bait?? the co-op up there does the best redspot whiting and chips in the world (my world at least haha).... you are right though i could eat a stack of them... top thinkin on the singles on the hardbody.. ian

lol funny post dave at least you got out there..... those pike make crackin jew baits if they are fresh... thats funny about the garfish was he good size??

you are on fire man.... beware of releasing other ppls fish i kicked two dudes bucket full of undersize blackfish mullet and tailor off the wall at the entrance and almost got stabbed beware lol now i don't care what other people do that is a big lure for a legal flatty let alone a bream, still i have seen some horse bream caught on poddys nice fish great effort ian

roberta is right ... leave the bait at home and you will see a huge increase in fish caught on plastics... before last summer i had caught about 10 flatties and a few tailor on plastics, but last summer i scored about 100 from legal to 67 cm all on plastics, plus a whole bunch of undersize ones.... i wouldn't even take a hook or a sinker so there was no tempation to baitfish. wading the flats early morning is educational because you will spook many more fish than you catch for a while....flathead lies in the sand will tell more than just that a fish has been there.they also tell you which way the fish has been facing and with a bit of thought you can work out what stage of the tide they were on the bank..this will tell which way your lure needs to come from... try to cast up current as much as possible, and if you are not already, i would use gelspun line in 6 or 10 pd this will help you cast further and feel whats happenin wd on the first it won't be the last... wait till you connect to a big one cheers ian

here is the lonely flathead... thx guys....normally catchin undersize fish is a bit tedious but when you can get some kids onto a few they sure luv em... marty, your spot has been firing ....we haven't put the boat in for a while but my mates have been cleanin up

had a few beers and jumped on the pushy and got to the entrance about 7 pm last night expectin it to be wall to wall anglers... not a soul around nice one fished off theh jetty south west side of bridge and got into it straight away with a range of bream from small to 26 that destroyed my bait supply.... also scored a few whiting just undersize ... a couple came over with their nephew from sydney who was only up for a day and he caught two little bream on my rod which was cool... just on dusk it was chopper time and every bait was gettin monstered before it hit the bottom...got 4 legal ones, 2 on plastics (the cheapest curly tail grubs you can find - i only lost 3 tails last night...normally 5 tails per fish is the norm)... kept a chopper for bait and relaxed as it got dark with both rods loaded up with pillies..the tailor bite shut down and i was wondering where are the flathead.... i met a korean bloke from sydney who had a rod but no bait hooks and sinkers, cause he had just arrived and everything was shut and his son was super keen... so i thought cool more good karma and the little man hooked a just undersize bream on my rod while his old man went to get his rod... i rigged him up and gave him a couple of sinkers and hooks and some mullet strips and tailor strips... i had two rods out using the same for bait and every time i was helpin the dudes my rod was gettin hammered and i was losin fish oh well...better quality fish came in and i started concentrating bang flatty woohoo dinner for tomorrow then the young fella got one too he was stoked...good karma.... fished on until about midnite... catching a breamevery 15 mins or so all around legal(no ruler and bream are not high on my take list anyway especially not in tuggerah lakes where that bream can make a kiddies holiday) met another dude from sydney who'd just driven up and left him too it cause the bite had slowed down a bit all in all it was the usual just legal bream chaos but there were definitely some more solid hits... all the tailor i caught were good size so they were probably the culprit...i saw a few nice whiting landed cracker night for a fish and i got my flatty eventually at 45cm cheers ian

that is an excellent and constuctive idea achjimmy

if grey nurse sharks are in such decline i have a serious problem with unscrupulous dive operators taking celebrity a@@@@les down there to get pics with the GNS and now they are an eco-warrior...look at mpa website. to the best of my knowledge the more you disturb these guys with camera flash the less you see.... and people seem to be seeing a lot.... they must be the most seen 300 animals in australia... we as fisherman might occasionally catch protected species, it is unintentional and we release them immediately... unlike these a@@@@les ecowarriors

i agree with you fellas 100%.... i have no solution to this problem but maybe we really need to start letting people know that we are environmentally aware. from what i've read the NPA want 50% of nsw waters to be no take... i think our undoing is the fact that we are too time poor to campaign and whinge in boardrooms and at protest meeting and the like... we are too busy fishing..... maybe the problem is we need a federal minister for fishing...someone to be accountable. i'm pretty aware of both your views on this matter, but you would be perfect candidates to inform the npa and "state wankers who haven't got a brain when it comes to understanding Mother Ocean and it's migratory species" about this stuff. you guys have got some hours under your belt on the water. my point being that you and i are both too busy.... surely as a huge voting block, we could negotiate or lobby a better deal. as has been pointed out before, its hard to see how green preferences from urban hippys in newtown can decide the future of whole seaside communities.... our problem is we are on the outer of a tightknit group which includes dive operators, greens, npa, and any number of minority green groups.. and they are good at lobbying politicians.

we use the wide gapes when livebaiting mullet for flattys.... like a circle hook make sure that there is nothing between the point of the hook and the shank.... we pin the mullet thru the shoulder or nose... i have also been trying em out for light baitfishing.... a mate loads em up with shrimp for bream and whiting in the smaller sizes... whiting seem to hook themself most times gl

experience lol it all depends what you are chasing and whereabouts... dawn and dusk can turn it on but that is no guarantee... for flat head the last couple of hours of the run out tide are usually best... but now that i fish more with lures for them, i have realised you can catch them at any stage of the tide if you can find where they are hanging out... the same applies to rockfishing... the fish will change spots according to the comings and goings of the tide... so some spots that might fish well for groper and drummer on a low tide will be useless on a high tide... everywhere is different/// i fish a lot at dawn and dusk, but that is mainly to escape crowds and wind.... i can catch flattys in the daytime and drummer and blackfish too.... but as you asked, as a general rule i go beach fishing on the last three hours before hightide, chase drummer around the same sort of time, i try to livebait off the rocks at low tide, and try to chase flathead on the bottom of the tide ...couple that with an early morning or dusk session on a stable day like today and i like my chances good luck hope my rambling helped

not too start an argument.... but i support the greens on the majority of their policy platforms.... with the exception of the marine park fiasco... we need to let the greens know that we agree on a whole range of issues, except for this... we obviously need to share our wealth of knowledge with them so they can see past irrational arguments put forth by extremist minority "professional" protest groups... we need to unite against unsustainable fishing practices, both recreational and commercial.... what we don't need is to lose acces to our coastline and foreshore...no extreme green group, fisherman or politician owns this land.... its all of ours to share

2 slow lol i think this might be the culprit http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=46975 pictilabrus laticlavius... the only common name i could find was Patrician wrassse or senator wrasse.... pretty cool

good question david you will get snagged often fishin for these guys...thats par for the course.... we minimise this as much as we can by lifting the rod tip up regularly and reel in a bit of line to keep the bait suspending so each cast might only be out for minute or less... also by using small sinkers{pea size is 2 big...) you minimise the time you spend snagged up... that said it is a fine line because you need your bait in those cracks and crevices in the first place....on a good session we would go through 15 hooks each in a day to snags or fish...so when you find a good brand that are cheap load up... i figure what i lose in hooks i save by using bread for bait, plus i don't lose my blackfish floats... nice tip peter... would that tripe work on mullet do you reckon??

what wrasse is this i could look on fishbase but what fun would that be when one of you already know.. the photo doesn't do it justice. the blue lines around the fish were really vivid

hey danilo... kenmare(bob) has offered you some excellent advice there... there are 3 schools of thought i think when chasin drummer...i fish for them a lot like your mate does with a 7 foot rod and 9 lb or 12lb straight thru to the hook with the strongest small hooks you can find and the smallest sinker you can get away with.i hardly evr use floats because i use bread for bait and it gets hammered pretty quick. secondly is bobs method of fishing heavy blackfishing gear which is highly effective...his point on using a lighter leader than mainline is great advice when pigs start stealin all your floats...but when big pigs are around i would up your mainline to 15 lb or more... thirdly are blokes that fish for big tank drummer of 3kg or more...these guys use 14 ft alveys and big cunji baits or red rock crabs..30lb line or more are required and groper are usually a bycatch i tend to fish the first way cause it is so much fun but when i get busted up too many times i get out the big guns i couldn't possibly tell you what size sinker to use because every wash is different and you will need to change weight according to tide and conditions....if a fellow raider offers to show you whats up it will save you mountains of time... i took some pics to show you an easy ( the only) way to present bread on a hook. i was shown this ages ago by a mullet fisho... around this size is good... don't squash the bread the fluffier and fresher the better use stale bread and crusts for berley place hook thru top corner of bread carefully push right thru to eye and place hook back thru bread as shown squash only the top corner of bread back around the shank...you want the hook point well exposed, surrounded by soft fluffy bread... this will stay on surprisingly long.a solid ball of dough on a hook is much less effective...when you get a hit and all you have left is a little squashed bread rebait...i use bread because i can get it to waft and suspend in the wash zone better than a prawn, but peeled prawns are still the gun bait, or cunji.... you then need to present this somewhere that a pig might find it..i find the last two hours of the run in best, but the pigs will move spots accrding to the tide so you might have to move a few times to find the fish. the pigs will usually be in the wash at your feet so long casts are not needed often... look for milky water with water pouring back into the ocean off a ledge after most waves...the pigs will be tight to the rocks under that milky water... this brings me to the fact that you won't catch drummer unless there is some swell about ... without that surge and whitewater they stay in their caves all day... so expect to get hit by waves when fishing like this... just be careful... some of our better pig spots involve casting when you get a break between sets and scampering when you have to...when you get onto a nice fish you can get into some gnarly situations because you are not watching the ocean... don't fish in more than 2 m of swell unless you really know the spot and conditions... last of all, dont think you need to fish deep water... my favourite spot was under sand for two years but now its cleaned out and it is shallow, reefy and fun. these reefs change on a daily basis with sand movement so you constantly need to explore... drummer are surprisingly easy to catch danilo and they might be the perfect fish for you to get into sorry for the essay lol

nope.... you need to be careful about where you harvest cunji too as some places are protected... i usually fish with bread for fair results

ditto..... central coast boys are knockin up a few fish

idbe using the raider to chase larger flattys, and pelagic action with 7,15, 25 gram metal lures... anti carp is spot on...you can catch bonito, frigates, salmon and tailor on this gear if you can spin with relatively deep water at you feet , breakwalls are prime... as for poppers if you were confused last year wait til this summer from what i saw yesterday almost all lure manufacturers have some on offer... i think action will prove more important than price...that and fishing them in the right places at the right time...

i haven't chased pigs for a month or two due to work commitments, and got some nice reports yesterday of some 4kg fish coming in on inshore reefs....i have caught my three biggest drummer at the start of november and remember some big wipeouts around this time of year.....has anyone else had similar experience?? i was talkin to an old salt yesterday and he reckons that nov is when the big units come right inshore to do their spawning thing.... anyone got any thoughts on the matter??? has anyone been chasin pigs?? i've been distracted by the flathead coming back lol

i've got a feeling that some real big flathead are gunna be in the system this year.....i've already seen more xos whiting on the flats this year than the whole of last season, and the weedbeds are thick as with shrimp and prawns.... bring on the social hey... picked up some poppers today so its off to the sandflats an hour before first light to fish all those spot that are too shallow for plastics..... last year when we had that cold water system off the coast in summer it was so cold in the lake that the flattys were right up in the weeds in about 10 cm of water... challenging !! flounder are already in the system and that is a great sign about the health of an estuary... poddy mullet are available but are flighty, and are either a bit small or too big (cracker jew bait though hey>>) best advice for raiders over summer is to put your boat in in the arvo when all the others are coming in and fish until about 10...either that or be there early and i mean early...like fishing by 4 am home by 9am....the lake sees a lot of hooks over summer and good bait is essential... NB that being said every year the best 3 whiting i see get caught up here are caught on house brick sinkers and 20 pound mono lol

we were due to head to the hawksbury on friday afternoon for a jew assualt/camping trip for three days... o well car overheated made it back, fixed the car, tried again car overheated shit.... ok we camp at my house and fish the entrance land based... friday night spun for 3 hours in the rain i got two 45 cm flatties on squidgy shads, and the boys caught 2 more on prawn baits... saturday night i got another 2 same size same lure and lost a nice 60 cm model twice in two casts on a prawn... the boys caught another 2 40 cm flattiesagain and 3 bream all just legal....watched boats come and hammer what was our secret spot last year and pull fish hand over fist lie detector had flat batteries again ( sure sure i hear you say) so no pics its nice to see the lake fishing well again and i reckon this summer will be even better than last years awesome season...the lake is cleaner than i have seen